The Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008 (Vic) (Act) prohibits taking donated gametes, or embryos produced from donated gametes, into or outside of Victoria without the written approval of the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Authority (VARTA). Accordingly, approval must be obtained from VARTA before:

• the import of donor gametes, or embryos produced from donor gametes, into Victoria from interstate or overseas;

Leading researchers and reproductive specialists discussed current research into whether we can create human sperm and eggs from stem cells and what this could mean for assisted reproductive laboratories and clinical practice in the future at the 2015 Twilight Seminar: Hope, hype or reality: can we make eggs or sperm from stem cells?

Leading researchers and reproductive specialists discussed current research into whether we can create human sperm and eggs from stem cells and what this could mean for assisted reproductive laboratories and clinical practice in the future at the 2015 Twilight Seminar: Hope, hype or reality: can we make eggs or sperm from stem cells?

Rose's story of how she found her donor through DNA testing

I have always known that I was donor conceived. Likewise I have always known that I would never know the identity of my donor. The clinic (Queen Victoria Hospital) doesn’t exist anymore, the donors were offered complete anonymity and the doctor swears that the records were ‘lost’ in transition to a private fertility clinic.

Dinah and Ben's IVF treatment lasted four years until Dinah finally gave birth to their daughter Tallulah in 2010. In listening to this podcast series please bear in mind that Dinah and Ben's experience is not universal, it is their story. This podcast series is not intended to replace or replicate medical advice.

Transcript

How the journey began

My husband and I started trying for a baby in July 2005 and I just felt straightaway that something was wrong. I felt like my cycle was sort of unreliable and I didn’t really know when I was ovulating and I also had the expectation that many people have I guess and that is a reality for many people that they fall pregnant the first time that they have unprotected sex and we’d been doing what most couples do which is use contraception for how many years we’d been together and then suddenly throw away the contraception and just expect it to happen straightaway and that wasn’t the case for us and the more we sort of went on and we kept trying naturally I just felt that something was wrong.

So I investigated and made the appointment to see a specialist and that’s sort of the beginning of our journey I guess. We only lasted six months because I couldn’t last any longer so we tried for six months. You know other people had sort of said you know “maybe try for a year and see how you go” and that wasn’t what I wanted to do and I felt like I was getting older and I felt like everyone around me was getting pregnant and I wasn’t and I really wanted to act on that and you know I’m glad that we did because the process of actually being involved in IVF takes a lot longer than sort of what you’d expect from the outset as well I think.

So you know from when we started in July 2005 to when we actually conceived in April 2009 that’s a long time and you know I would have expected it would have been quicker than that. So we started trying when both of us were 32. I think it’s different for everybody and whenever I talk about my IVF journey I always preface it by saying that everybody’s journey is different and this is just – you know, I can only talk about my own journey and I mean I know plenty of people who have been involved in IVF. I guess through the IVF process I’ve met people and it seems to me when you open up about IVF you find that there are a lot more people involved than perhaps what you thought.

So I have talked to other people but this is my journey and this is my story and for me six months was the maximum amount of time that I could allow it to go by without any intervention and my specialist supported that. It was a whole new world to me and the very first question that we were asked when we went into the specialist’s rooms was – we sat down and did the normal pleasantries, introduced ourselves and the first question he asked was “does the penis go into the vagina and sperm come out” and both Ben and I went “yes”, I think so and we sort of reflected on it later, like it was such a confronting, embarrassing question to be talking about so early in the piece and I think for me and for my husband that sums up the whole journey, like it is a very confronting, personal thing and you are revealing intimate personal details about yourself and about your relationship and about your life and your physical body as well and everybody knows everything. All the specialists and the nurses and everyone, the team that you are working with, the medical team, know everything about you in that intimate way and it’s quite confronting.

Did you know anyone else who had been through IVF?

Yes I did. I have a very close friend, friends who are twins and one of the twins has four children and the other one has none and had started IVF before I did. So I knew a bit about the process from her but I really don’t think you know much about IVF until you actually start it yourself but it is helpful to hear other people’s stories and to hear what they’ve been through and you know, when she started going through IVF I was very much of the opinion that that was never going to happen to me. I didn’t know anything about the physical process apart from the fact that she tended to be – when we would meet and talk, if we would talk about anything to do with having children or pregnancy she would get quite upset. So I didn’t know much about the physical process of what she was going through but I definitely knew that it was emotionally affecting her. Throughout the process of IVF we had five stimulated cycles. We produced 12 embryos that were viable for transfer and we had nine transfers and in 2009 I finally conceived my daughter who is now two years old so she was born in January 2010 and conceiving her and carrying her and birthing her

After three years of trying to conceive without success Jessica Busuttil and her husband Phillip were told that Phillip had a condition called azoospermia, which, in layman terms, means that Phillip had no sperm.

“This diagnosis was totally unexpected,” Jessica explained. “It was an extremely difficult and emotional time in our lives – we just felt lost.”

Listen to Angie and Greg talk about how important it is to talk to children about how they became a family using donor sperm.

Transcript

Greg:

I think the best thing to do is (be) open with your children about it. Open from the very beginning. I know of some donor-conceived children that found out later in life. And they’ve been quite bitter about the whole thing.

My name is Angie, mother of two donor-conceived children Tara and Cassie, Cassie being the eldest. We basically let them know that there’s another person in the background that has actually helped produce them.

Announcer:

Greg and Angie’s children have always been aware that they were donor-conceived. Telling them about it came early in their lives when they understood just the basic concepts. So was there much reaction?

Not really a lot. You know...big deal! Really, I think that’s good in a way. There’s nothing unusual about it or nothing that’s going follow up in a few year’s time thinking; oh why didn’t we know this? Because they’ll always remember knowing that we’ve had these snippets of conversation and I guess what will happen soon is the penny will drop and that’s when the questions will come.

Greg:

We feel it’s very important for the children to know about their donor origins.

And the other issue that comes up too is that, when do you actually tell them. Do you tell them when they’re going to school? Or when they start going through puberty, and they have all these other emotions going on at the time and they probably don’t want to hear about this sort of thing. Parents often find it very difficult to tell at a later stage because they can’t find the words, can’t create the situation. … or can’t even find a good situation. And so it becomes very difficult, in some cases they never tell.

Angie:

I think it’s the social aspect that people still feel as though it’s really bad to have done it. Yeah I think that’s what it comes down to. People think, oh you couldn’t have your kids. I think they have the perception that other people think that way but really I think people don’t really care. It’s more respectable now that that’s the way you perhaps have to have a family then that’s the way you deal with it. People know IVF now and they often mistake one for the other so they don’t really have a lot of understanding people out there of what the different situations are.

Greg:

I think when people first going through the idea of using somebody else’s genetics they think it’s just a huge issue. It’s going to have such a huge significant impact on their life I think they forget that later on... It’s part of the picture; it’s only a minor picture I think.

Angie:

Well I truly believe when they start the process that they really need to have a good think about what they’re doing and be comfortable in their decision. So many people I think go through it really quickly and don’t feel comfortable and feel really ashamed. I don’t know what the words are or how they might be feeling, but I think to have an issue in the background and that it makes them uncomfortable in speaking openly about it and therefore they can’t tell their kids, they can’t tell their family in some cases, they can’t tell their friends. And I think it’s all got to do with at the very beginning just accepting what’s happened to them and finding a place for it and once they’ve settled on that they’ll be able to feel that it’s all right. They can speak about it and therefore they’ll speak to their kids about it.

Announcer:

But how do you start to speak about it? What words do you use? Greg and Angie quickly learned that there are many others who have faced these questions. And, that there is a lot of collective advice out there.

I think perhaps if they seek out some people who have gone through it. Speak to some people that have had some children. So get in contact with counsellors and support groups that are out there. Get in touch... come to a social... Speak to some other parents. They’ll find that we’re all in that boat in some situation. Some are quite happy about how it’s gone through. Some have had more difficulty than others. So I think people feel more comfortable if they speak to other people about it. Yeah that would help.

Angie:

I think we’ve done it the right way. Well it would be very difficult if you had to actually say it now. So I can understand people that have got some grown children where they were told at the beginning not to say anything to now have to say something. And I can feel that it would be very, very hard to start to have that conversation with your children, I mean, how do you do it? You know, by the way...It’s like the adoption; hi by the way... you’re adopted. You know it would be very hard to make that conversation if the don’t know. No I haven’t regretted it. I think we’ve done that right.

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VARTA provides independent information and support for individuals, couples, and health professionals on fertility, infertility, assisted reproductive treatment (ART) and the best interests of children born.